


Two Paths

by storybored



Series: 100 themes [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Joey and barbara are friends, jay has a temper, not entirely happy with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 17:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14720573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storybored/pseuds/storybored
Summary: Based on a conversation I had awhile back about how some people think that Jason and Barbara are on the same path because they were both seriously injured by the Joker but they really aren't.





	Two Paths

Barbara sat in her wheelchair at the funeral, her hands clenching the arm rests as she already made an aborted attempt to stand up out of habit. Dick wasn’t there. It was just her, her dad, Bruce and the priest. A small funeral for a closed off kid and his biological mother.

Jason was dead and the Joker killed him. Sweet caring compassionate Jason who hid his feeling but wore his heart on his sleeve. Jason who never caught a break. Jason who went to Ethiopia to find his mom and got killed because he always stood up for the little guy. He didn’t deserve that.

Barbara was furious when she rolled into the Clock Tower, her dad had to go into work so he dropped her off. She thought of all she had to do before she could continue helping the heroes she had a program to finish writing, the entire system to setup and implement the security system, not to mention the furniture that had to be built and the alarm systems on the clock tower itself that had to be tightened up, it was going to be a long month. Barbara looked at the boxes of computers and equipment, before dialing a well known number, Dick dropped out of contact after he went to Haly’s for a bit but there was a few other people she trusted in her home that weren’t bat or civilian. Joey’s face appeared on her phone smiling at her, Barbara saw a flash of white hair run by in the background,”How’s my favorite tech genius?”

Joey raised an eyebrow at her,”What do you want?”

Barbara shrugged,”Some help. I need an extra pair of hands and I don’t want to talk to Dick.”

Joey nodded in understanding,”I got a family thing to finish up, but I can be there in an hour?”

Barbara looked around the room,”Yeah. That’ll be fine, bring a tool box.”

Joey nodded,”Peace out.”

Joey showed up about 40 minutes with a tool box and a box of pizza for Barbara to eat, with Joey Barbara could care less about what she did, less about keeping her identity behind closed doors. Bruce and Dick each had a stick up their ass about how the secret identity interacted with their personal life’s but with Joey’s mom being in the government and how he used to work for her and how his dad was Deathstroke, a man who’s intelligence was the only thing sharper then his blade. A secret identity never really mattered to him, he could have one if he really wanted but he could handle himself. 

Joey saw the upset look on her face,”You wanna talk about it?”

Barbra sighed before rolling over to one of the boxes,”Not really. Go build the desks.”

Joey sighed before dragging the box containing the desk. The pair of vigilantes worked in silence for a few hours with Joey setting up the power systems while Barbara finished the Oracle program. 

Joey tapped her on the houlder,”What’s with the name Oracle?”

Barbara looked up at him,”Thought you would remember by now. I see everything. I know everything. Like the name of your boyfriend.” 

Joey scowled,”You need to keep that between us.”

“Always, you are my favorite most days after all.” Barbra watched as the program finished uploading to the main frame and her symbol appeared on all the screens. She began to type and pull up various caches of information,”FBI, Justice League, DOD, NSA. I got the world at my fingertips.”

Barbara caught Joey’s reflection in the small mirror she kept on her desk so she could see behind her,”And you didn’t before?”

Barbara scowled,”Shut up.”

* * *

 

Jason counted 42 Chinese, maybe Thai children all under 10, drugged but well fed. Handcuffed to rails on the bed, cuffs to tight for any ofthem to slip but not tight enough to leave marks. Jason looked away from the children and towards Egon’s office on the other side of the clearing, Leon still wouldn’t be back. He could save them. He just needed to move quickly, and he needed an apple and a few rocks.

Jason knew food was kept in the garage because the muscle was never around long enough to grab an actual meal, the rocks were easy enough to find and got shoved into his jean pockets and Jason started to dig the seeds out of the apple as he went towards Egon’s office. Jason looked at the window before opening it. Egon’s arrogance was shown in the fact that his office had no alarms. The windows weren’t even locked. Amatuer. Jason quickly ground up the apple seeds and scraped them into the open bottles of energy drink, a little gift for the dirt bag for when Jason came to pay him a visit. Jason tossed the rocks back out the window before quickly and quietly shutting it. He gave the office a cursory once over and saw Egon’s black book, written in a code only Egon knew the details of. You could tell the amount moved but not what was being sold or how much it was going for. 

He looked up hearing the truck start up, and Jason looked out the window seeing them starting to load up the truck, he had 45 minutes till he lost his opportunity to take this operation down, 10 minutes walking from the motor pool. Jason bolted toward the pool and stole one of the trucks and drove ahead on the route, he spun the truck on it’s side and flooded the engine waiting for the car to catch fire. When the engine finally caught and Jason climbed out of the truck and hid in the woods for the men to drive by him.

WHen the truck began to turn away Jason quickly fired off several bullets, shattering the window and hitting one of the men in the shoulder. If it wasn’t for the cargo they were carrying Jason would have felt bad for hitting Jan in the shoulder. He held the gun to the other guy’s head,”Jan is bleeding to death from that shoulder. You can either drive or take a bullet too. I vote for the prior, it’s a nice night for a ride.”

The guy nodded, and began to drive back to base his eyes locked on the road. Jason knocked him unconscious as soon as the truck stopped moving and began to head toward the British embassy to drop off the children. Jason escaped from the truck as Jan and the other guy were arrested. Jaon waited for the kids to start being pulled out of the back of the truck before he allowed himself to leave and head back to end this trafficking ring for good, something Batman would never do. 

Egon was busy yelling into the phone by the time Jason had gotten back to the camp,”They’re two hours late! The  _ entire cargo _ is with them! I can only delay the buyers for-  _ No _ , Damn it!  _ Just find them _ .”

Jason burst in the door his gun drawn, hand on the trigger prepared to fire,”It’s okay. I got them.”

Egon ducked as Jason fired two warning shots, both a little wide,”Little bastard.

Egon tackled him, and slammed him into the ground, causing Jason to suck in a breath on impact,”You! Zhis is your doing?!? Tell me vhat you’ve done! Vhere are zey?! Vhere?”

“Y’know… your accent gets thicker when you’re pissed. It’s…..cute.” Jason said smiling, before headbutting Egon and then being thrown into the snow.

“You think you are  _ clever _ ?! You think this zome  _ game _ ?  _ Rich American Punk!  _ Now the  _ tail _ wags the  _ dog?!  _ The  _ student  _ unseats the  _ master _ ?! I teach you- how to throw a few punches- and now you think- You can actually strike at me?”

Jason growled as his face was ground into the snow,”No- That’s why I poisoned your energy drink.”

Egon staggered off of him, and dropped to his knees his mouth foaming and eyes rolling to the back of his head. Jason picked himself up and wiped his sleeve across his face smearing the blood on it. He smiled to himself knowing that that monster would never haunt another child’s nightmares again.

* * *

 

Jason dropped onto the couch and turned his head so he could pull his helmet off. He was tired, and hurting, they just wouldn’t listen to him. 

When he killed Egon he save 42 kids from being sold into sexual slavery. When he killed his close combat teacher he saved 3 people. When he killed his hand gun instructor he dismantled a laced smack ring. When he killed his surveillance teacher, well that piece of human filth was a pedophile. When he stopped the terrorist threat in London, sure he killed more than he saved on that one, but he stopped children from having their lives ruined. He stopped families from being seen as terrorists. By killing them he was doing so much good that wouldn’t be permanent if he went Batman’s route. If Batman killed the joker there wouldn’t be graveyards filled with his victims, Barbara would still be able to walk and Jason would have to avoid his reflection in the mirror. Batman was a coward, how was he the only “good” guy who saw it?

Jason was about to take out his comm unit when it beep angrily at him,”Oh shut up. No one asked you.”

Barbara’s voice was extremely cold toward him,”Excuse me?”

Jason sighed and began to stagger toward the bathroom where he kept his first aid kit, blood was easier to clean off linoleum then it was wood,”Not you. What’s up?”

Barbara barely waited for him to finish his sentence before lighting into him,”What the Hell Do you think you are doing?!”

Jason flinched and reached up to jerk the comm out of his ear before Barbara stopped him in his tracks,”We are  _ not _ finished, Todd.”

Jason huffed before pulling his hand away from his ear and opened the first aid kit grabbing the suture materials as he struggled out of his armor and toppled into the tub so he could just rinse the blood out,”So what’s up?”

“You can’t keep pulling the wounded animal crap, you weren’t the only one hurt by him. You weren’t the only who wanted to kill him. You can rise above-“

Jason saw green, he was tired and hurting. He also already heard this speech from Nightwing,”Oh can I Oracle? Tell me when in my goddamn life have I been able to rise above it?”

“Jason-“

Jason barley heard her interrupt him and continued on,”I don’t get the privilege of doing what’s right. I do what’s necessary because I know what would happen if I didn’t.”

Oracle’s voice was sharp but soft,”Jason who was the first person you killed? This will stay between us, I swear.”

It sounded like a question but it wasn’t, Jason couldn’t help the feeling of fear that shot through him when Barbara said that the information would stay between them,”A human trafficker. Was a close combat teacher, I poisoned him.”

Barbara’s voice was quiet,”Why?”

“I saved 42 little kids that day immediately by killing him. Who knows how many more I saved by destroying that ring.”

Barbara was silent for so long Jason thought she’d disconnected,”Jason, this is still wrong.”

“Oracle, I don’t get to make those choices. Our paths diverged long ago. Don’t contact me again.”

Jason tore out the comm unit and flung it away from him, hearing it land somewhere by the sink. Jason finished stitching up his side and rolled onto his back, hearing his muscles and bones protest loudly, Jason shifted to reach up and attempted to pull down a red fluffy towel to wrap around himself as he fell asleep in the tub.


End file.
